APGA may reject results, alleges ballot box-snatching in Abia

EVEN AHEAD of the release of Saturday poll results in the state, the Abia state Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC) -recognized guber candidate of All Progressives Grand Alliance(APGA)Dr Alex Otti has given indication of possible rejection of election results by his party if the results its Poll Agents obtained at the polling units after voting differ from the ones to be announced.

Addressing journalists at his Umuahia campaign office Sunday evening, Otti listed his grievances against the conduct of the election and leveled some allegations namely : ballot- box snatching, use of 2011 ballot papers, writing of election results in places where voting did not hold, conduct of election by non INEC staff, non available results sheets and re-writing of election results, among others.

He urged INEC to quickly investigate the serious allegations of his party to avoid release of false results.

Asserting that his party’s Polling Agents obtained the authentic results of the voting which he said showed that APGA led , he said that a formal report has been lodged with the INEC highest office at Abuja and that of the state.

His words:” We have copies of the results where they were announced which showed that APGA was leading in many places. Because INEC offices were located in most local government headquarters where results are being collated , our agents were denied access there.

“We therefore doubt that authentic election results will come from such collation centers. When ballot boxes are snatched, it implies that ballot papers therein would be replaced with faked results hence we are very sad over these anomalies and would not accept such results”.

Asked if his party will reject the results if it is announced, he said if that became the case, APGA would still reject the results that did not reflect the true ones and accused the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) agents of effecting the anomalies.

But in his reaction, the state PDP Chairman , Senator Emma Nwaka described Otti’s allegation of re-writing of election results as laughable.
He said: “Reports reaching me from the field indicate that my party is winning. We have no need to tamper with the result. And even if it’s otherwise ,we would accept it with good grace as a disciplined party. Come to think about it, all election materials are in the custody of INEC, so how could we have access to them”.